Ted Cruz suddenly asked his top spokesman to resign for spreading 'false' Marco Rubio story

Republican presidential
candidate Ted Cruz said on Monday that his campaign would conduct
itself "with the very highest standards of
integrity."CNN

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has asked his top
spokesman to resign after he
spread a video that purportedly showed rival Marco Rubio
dismissing the Bible.

"I asked for Rick Tyler's resignation," Cruz told reporters
Monday. "I had made clear in this campaign that we will conduct
this campaign with the very highest standards of integrity."

Cruz added:

That has been how we've conducted it from day one. It is why when
other campaigns attack us personally, impugn my integrity or my
character, I don't respond in kind. None of you have heard me
throw the kind of insults at Marco Rubio that he throws at
me every single day.

The latest firestorm started over the weekend when Tyler, Cruz's
top spokesman, posted a video on his Facebook page that purported
to show Rubio pointing to a Bible a Cruz staffer was holding in a
hotel lobby and saying "not many answers" are in it.

Rubio in fact said that "all the answers are in there" as he
gestured toward the Bible.

He defended Tyler as a "good man" who made "a grave error in
judgment."

Cruz said that even if the video were accurate, Tyler shouldn't
have shared it.

"We are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of
another candidate," Cruz said. "The standards of conduct in this
campaign have been made absolutely clear for every member of the
campaign."

I want to apologize to Senator Marco Rubio for posting an
inaccurate story about him here earlier today. The story showed a
video of the Senator walking past a Ted Cruz staffer seated in
the lobby of a hotel reading his Bible. The story misquoted a
remark the Senator made to the staffer. I assumed wrongly that
the story was correct. According to the Cruz staffer, the Senator
made a friendly and appropriate remark. Since the audio was
unclear, I should not have assumed the story was correct. I've
deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false
story. But the fact remains that I did post it when I should have
checked its accuracy first. I regret the mistake.

The Rubio campaign released a statement defending Tyler and
blasting Cruz:

Rick is a really good spokesman who had the unenviable task of
working for a candidate willing to do or say anything to get
elected. There is a culture in the Cruz campaign, from top to
bottom, that no lie is too big and no trick too dirty. Rick did
the right thing by apologizing to Marco. It's high time for Ted
Cruz to do the right thing and stop the lies.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, who has often
called Cruz a "liar" and accused him of dirty campaigning,
quickly jumped into the fray.

Wow, Ted Cruz falsely suggested Marco Rubio mocked the Bible
and was just forced to fire his Communications Director. More
dirty tricks!